Fearful Dental Patient Helped With Sedation Dentistry – Orlando Sedation Dentistry

My name is Katie Sewell and I live in the Forest City area in Orlando and I go to the Dentist Studio. I just was always scared of the dentist and I had one incident where I was probably eight and the dentist pulled one of my teeth without Novocain. He said ‘oh, you don’t need it’, and I felt every bit of it. So after that it was like just terror. It’s emotionally crippling I think, not to sound too extreme, but it is. I felt like I couldn’t do business with people. Even in my wedding pictures I hide my smile. I didn’t smile. You just see these pictures of me just going or covering my face and it was like that for years. I didn’t feel like I could laugh or smile or talk freely. I knew I had to go to someone but that fear just kicked in again. I looked online. I did some research for a friend who had referred me. They had mentioned Dr. Hodgins and thought it would be perfect for me with my anxiety. The first visit I had, I actually cried when I saw the dental chair for the first time. But it was really comforting because being from a cosmetology background, I walked in and it felt like I was in a spa. It didn’t smell or feel or even sound like a dental office. The room that they take you into, it’s great because he has no tools lying anywhere. He offered me a magazine. He didn’t make me sit in the chair. He said he didn’t have to look in my mouth. He just wanted to talk to me and see how I felt and then we would take each step as needed, as I was comfortable. First of all, the last time I had gone, it was probably honestly 10-12 years. I was really afraid. I knew that it wasn’t going to be great news but he had a comforting way of handling it and helping me through each step of it. I ended up having to have laser gum surgery and I was terrified and I thought I going to lose all my teeth and he made it so that I didn’t have to lose even one. It’s given me a new confidence. When I book an appointment now, I don’t tremble when I dial that number for the first time like going to a dentist and have felt pain. I wouldn’t go anywhere else.